Worldwide there are many poisonous snakes whose venomous bite can kill human beings. In the USA only four snakes are regarded as fatal to humans. They include, the coral snake, the copperhead, the cottonmouth water moccasin and the rattlesnake.

Please click the following link, Rattlesnake!, to learn more about these fascinating animals!

Image taken with a Canon T90 film camera with Canon FD 100mm F2,8 lens on Kodak Tri-X film, push-processed to 3200 ISO,.

“If you want to maintain a sustainable supply of fish you have to farm the fish, rather than mine them. So putting your money into fishing fleets that are going to exacerbate the problem by over-fishing is not the way to preserve the underlying asset.”

– Maurice Strong

Johan Botha: River of life #3 ( Sustainability )

This image of dried fish or “Bokkoms”, as it is called on the West coast of South Africa, was taken on a Canon A1 film camera with a Canon FD 50mm F1.4 lens. The film was Ilford FP4 125 ISO.

The Blue Crane, known by scientists as Grus paradisea, is a beautiful and amazing animal well worth being South Africa’s national bird.

It is also referred to as the Stanley Crane ,the Paradise Crane and by some taxonomies, Anthropoides paradiseus.

Sadly, because there are only 25 000 birds left in South Africa, Bird Life International classifies the Blue Crane as Vulnerable.

I took this shot one early morning during 2011, outside the Elsenburg Agricultural Training College, near Stellenbosch. Although they are usually shy creatures I was able to get real close to this beauty!

Johan Botha (2011): Blue Crane Portrait

For more information about these amazing creatures click the following link: Bluecrane.